I am a long time Orchid member who's areas of interest focus mostly
around gems, as I am a cutter.

For quite a few years, besides jewelry stones, I've also been
producing gemstone sculptures. Now you can see them in person.

To anyone in and around the Chicago area, or visiting this summer, I
have the honor of displaying a solo exhibit of my sculptural work at
the Lizzadro Lapidary Arts Museum in Elmhurst, Illinois. It's about
20 minutes outside Chicago.

The Exhibit opens on June 18th and runs through September 15th.

In addition, I will be at the museum on Saturday August 24th to meet
with folks and give a 40 minute talk on my techniques and my
approach to my art. In short, over the course 20 years, I have
gradually come to view my work less as a pure craft and more as an
effort at fine art using the media of high quality gem stones, other
stones, wood and metal. My goal is to produce attractive interesting
and sometimes even provocative art that does not need to adhere to
the accepted standards and subject matter of "lapidary art."

I hope many of you can make it to the exhibit while it runs, and
Orchid members can also attend the presentation in August. I will
send an additional reminder before the 24th.

I was excited to see your announcement, and went to the Lizzadro
site hoping to see some images. I found no info on their site about
your talk or show! They need to get the info out there! Meanwhile,
can you share any pics?